Tips for getting you and your baby some sleep
As any new parent knows, good sleep can be a struggle. Infants and their parents often suffer from sleep deprivation. What can parents do?
Dr. Innessa Donskoy, a pediatric sleep medicine at Advocate Children’s Hospital, offers these tips for building healthy sleep habits very early in life.
- Start your baby’s day at more or less the same time seven days/week with plenty of bright morning sunlight.
- Build your baby’s sleep pressure all day with age-appropriate activities (tummy time, mat play, crawling).
- Notice your baby’s cues for sleep throughout the day and night; signs they are ready for naps and nighttime. This matters more than the time on the clock.
- Be patient! Adults have different sleep preferences/needs and so do babies. As a pair, you’ll figuring each other out.
Need some support? Reach out to your pediatrician or ask for a referral to an Advocate Children’s Hospital pediatric sleep medicine physician. Find a primary care doctor in Illinois or Wisconsin.
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About the Author
Evonne Woloshyn, health enews contributor, is director of public affairs at Advocate Children's Hospital. Evonne began her career as an anchor and reporter in broadcast news. Over the past 20 years, she has worked in health care marketing in both Ohio and Illinois. Evonne loves to travel, spend time with family and is an avid Pittsburgh Steelers fan!
What do parents do about 2 year old that have nightmares?
Scary dreams can be very hard for kids to process! And very quickly this can turn into bedtime resistance as well! Dream Rehearsal Therapy (also called image rehearsal therapy/IRT) is a phenomenal and evidence-based therapy for nightmares for people of all ages! In a nutshell you talk about the uncomfortable dream in the day, you let the child tell you all about it and then you allow the child the space and creativity to come up with their own ending for the dream! You repeat this process daily (ideally earlier in the day and not close to bedtime). Over time, the child’s mind will come to incorporate this “script” to feel most natural and likely the nightmare will change or go away altogether!